Field of the Invention
The invention relates a technology relating to parking assistance for a vehicle.
Description of the Background Art
Conventionally, parking assist apparatuses have been generally known that assist a driver of a vehicle in parking operation by automatically controlling a steering wheel and the like, to park the vehicle in a parking space. Moreover, parking assist systems have been introduced in the society that accumulate past parking operations of drivers for each parking lot to execute a parking operation most appropriate for the driver in a parking lot based on the accumulated information of the parking operations. By using such parking assistance, it is possible to accurately and easily park a vehicle even in a case of parallel parking that requires some steering wheel operations and even in a case of a parking space with a small distance to an adjacent vehicle. Those parking assist technologies are very useful especially for beginner drivers and elderly drivers.
However, such parking assistance is executed whenever the driver moves a gearshift to a reverse (back) position. In a case where the driver determines to drive and park the vehicle himself/herself, such parking assistance is unnecessary. Therefore, some drivers feel that such parking assistance is troublesome, and deactivate the parking assist apparatus. Thus, it is recommended that such parking assistance should be executed only when the driver truly desires to use the parking assistance, such as a case where the driver cannot park the vehicle smoothly.